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Lady of Darkness
Motivation: Seduce all who believe themselves virtuous Caste: Midnight Anima Banner: an obscene tableau of stylized images depicting the most horrific acts of Solar sexual depravity her First Age incarnation witnessed. ----- The whore known as Rose Petals Parted spent her short, brutish life wavering between a trashy concubine and a cheap street harlot, depending on whether her latest high-society patron had grown tired enough of her whining and appalling ignorance to throw her out. Only her cleverness and guile kept patrons from slitting her throat when they evicted her and allowed her to find another high-society sap to pity her with mad hope of making a respectable woman out of her. From her dizzying array of clientele, she gradually accumulated a collection of sexually transmitted diseases that left her dying of fever and festering with sores until the prostitutes who worked her street dumped her quivering body into the sewer to get rid of the smell. Drowning in offal and bitterness, Rose Petals Parted found something worse reaching out to her, calling her Lady with overwrought courtesy that was both mocking and the first taste of real respect she ever knew. The voice praised her hate, praised her contempt for social mores and praised her lifetime of lies slick enough to seduce even honorable Dragon-Blooded time and again. Accepting this voice’s offer of life and vengeance, the now-Exalted whore arose gasping from the river of filth and clawed her way to the bank so quietly that the rivals laughing about her demise did not hear the splash. In her rage, she tore her diseased and stinking skin and the tatters of her dress from her like a molting serpent and climbed to shriek mutilating insults at those who found her misery amusing. Against the chill of the night air, she gathered up the bloody tatters of their hides and wrapped them about her like a crimson cloak, earning the title she has answered to ever since. From there, she cut a swath of brutal revenge on all the former clients she could find until the Mask of Winters sent a team of nemissary servants to retrieve her from her petty dalliance. Under his tutelage and abuse, she became an epic tempter and his poisoned hand in distant courts. At first, the Lady seemed an ideal Abyssal, utterly enamored of depravity and equally disgusted by life and love. However, her liege soon discovered that Exaltation had not made her more disciplined and had only sharpened her lustful appetite. For her failures, Mask of Winters demoted her, but this did not deter her from her distracting liaisons. From time to time, her lust even serves his cause precisely, laying low some self-styled paragon of virtue who stands in the Deathlord’s way, so he has yet to discipline her further and continues to channel her urges to his own ends. Within her assigned circle, the Lady is viewed with contempt (despite most of them having succumbed to her seductions with varying frequency). They hate her for this, for not pulling her weight and for daring the Neverborn’s wrath with dangerous proselytizing of her own cult. In turn, she hates her circle and would love to betray them were she not more afraid of chastisement from Mask of Winters. She especially loathes the Maiden of the Mirthless Smile for being prettier than her, though she would never admit it. She dreams of the day that bloodthirsty Dusk will fail and their master will let the Lady scream away that pretty face. The Lady’s secret shame is that she is too distracted by her lust to hear the Neverborn's Whispers, so she fakes communion with vague nihilistic dogma and prophecies that serve Oblivion enough that the dead titans have yet to strike her down with Resonance for taking their nameless horror in vain. From time to time, she stares in humbled astonishment at the scope and ingenuity of the perversities redoubling her commitment to surpass them with her own conquests.